Irish abortion referendum: Ireland overturns abortion ban - Page 27 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14925827
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:I realise that you (I think?) and snapdragon also contest that an unborn child deserves any protection whatsoever, but neither of you have in my view presented good arguments in favour of that position.


Until you understand that it is only your opinion a fetus is a child and legally (and scientifically) it is not, you will forever be limbo here and quite frankly ignorant and deliberately obtuse.

A fetus is regarded as nothing more than living tissue - and as such the mother's property until that tissue is independent (and living) from her. Morally and perhaps ideally it would be nice to give a fetus rights so it can have protections. But it is very practical that it remains not 'classed' as a human being. For if it was you would need a death certificate every time you have an abortion amongst other things.
#14925828
Information about the US states is completely irrelevant in regards to Ireland. This thread was about Ireland getting rid of an archaic abortion law that did more harm than good. That much is factual.

What Canada did, has nothing to do with Ireland, as well. It's just some of us hope they follow suit.

Abortion is always going to be a controversial issue. We aren't going to "solve it", here. We're going to have different and sometimes strong opinions on it. I've said my piece, and that's why I've declined to really comment further on it.

My stance on it, in case anyone wonders, or is assuming, is as follows:

There should be no laws on abortion. That said... Do everything you can to make abortion the absolutely LAST option that anyone feels they ever need to use. i.e. Provide more education on birth control, more support/counseling/advising for single mothers, more support for new parents, etc. etc. Abortion should never be seen as a form of birth control.
#14925832
Well Boycey. You are just wrong. Read my post above. It absolutely proves you wrong under the law in the US.

Here is a synopsis of the supreme court decision also refuting what you say:

Regarding late term abortions:

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the Court that the respondents had failed to prove that Congress lacked authority to ban this abortion procedure. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with the Court's judgment, joining Kennedy's opinion.

The Court left the door open for as-applied challenges, citing its recent precedent in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of New England. According to Washington Post reporter Benjamin Wittes, "The Court majority, following the path it sketched out last year in the New Hampshire case, decided to let the law stand as a facial matter and let the parties fight later about what, if any, applications need to be blocked."[18]

The Court decided to "assume ... for the purposes of this opinion" the principles of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The Court said that t — and the Court held that the ban fit that interest so as not to create an undue burden. The opinion did not rely deferentially on Congress's findings that this intact dilation and extraction procedure is never needed to protect the health of a pregnant woman; in fact the Court found that "evidence presented in the District Courts contradicts that conclusion." However, Kennedy wrote that a health exception was unnecessary: where medical testimony disputes Congress's findings, Congress is still entitled to regulate in an area where the medical community has not reached a "consensus."[2]

In addition, the Court distinguished this case from the Stenberg case (in which the Court struck down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law) by holding that the state statute at issue in Stenberg was more ambiguous than the later federal statute at issue in Carhart.[2]

Without discussing the constitutional rationale of the Court's prior abortion cases (i.e. "due process"), ".[9]


Oops. What do you know. In the US the SCOTUS disagreed with Snapdragon's vehement assertion that to deny a late term abortion denied a woman due process under the law.

I don't expect any of you to have the courage to admit you are wrong.

And there is the thing. We do live in a democracy. Laws do not proceed from your personal moral proclivities nor from some overriding religious moral authority. They proceed from the people and reside in the government by the sufferance of the people. If the people want the laws to change, the laws will change. There is no authority that and override the will of the people if a sufficient number of them agree.

Sorry Godstud. This thread is not a newsflash. It is a debate.
#14925835
Drlee wrote:Well Boycey. You are just wrong. Read my post above. It absolutely proves you wrong under the law in the US.


See, the problem you have Drlee is that if a unborn child was a child, US law wouldn't need to use the term unborn. This is a legal term for fetus. The scientific term is fetus. And a fetus is not regarded as a humanbeing.
#14925845
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:I can't comment, because the graph doesn't tell us how many were killed by their mothers. I had a quick search but couldn't find those statistics,


Yes, that was the best I could do as well. The rest were articles describing several cases of infanticide as an argument for repealing the law you mentioned and replacing it with a more serious law.

Suffice it to say that infanticide is qualitatively different from late term abortion in two distinct ways:

1. It does not involve the right to security of person, i.e. the body of the pregnant person is not being used.

2. While rare, infanticide occurs. So far, elective late term abortions do not happen.

although on a related note I came across this article which states that:

Which is the romantic notion of mothers I mentioned earlier and an awful double standard.


Yes, I came across that too. I would like to hear some of the arguments for making this a separate crime from homicide and for the reduced sentence.

I haven't read every post of yours in this thread but quite a few of them and you certainly seem to base your argument in part on this. You also do it later in this post (see below).

As for the law in Canada, if it has indeed no provision whatsoever to deal with the murder of an unborn baby, I suspect that if such a crime happens in the future, the law would be changed, as there would be rightly quite a lot of outrage that both the doctor and the mother could get away with it.


Well, I will now clarify that my argument is based on the right of security of person. It is the same argument used by the SCC in the Morgentaler case that got rid of the abortion laws in Canada.

The argument is that a pregnant person’s right to security of person was violated by the government by the Canadian laws in abortion at that time.

This then resulted in the aforementioned social experiment and lack of elective late term abortions despite their legalisation.

The fact that no elective late term abortions occurred in the last thirty years is a refutation of the criticism that elective late term abortions would occur if you got rid of abortion laws.

We've now gone full circle and I'm going to refer you back to my response to your post where you brought this up the first time.


Is there an argument I did not adress or refute?

I've never said this. For instance, I think there should be laws preventing people from acquiring weapons of mass destruction even if nobody has acquired them up to the point the law is introduced.


Sorry, I sincerely believed that you had replied to @Godstud with this rebuttal when he discussed some of the possible negative impacts from bans on abortion.

If you now say that possible negative impacts that have never occurred should be part of policy, then I will drop it.

So your argument does depend on whether healthy babies are killed or not. I thought nobody was arguing based on that?


Again, my argument is not based on this. My argument is based in security of person. The fact that healthy unborn babies are not being killed is a refutation of a possible criticism of the argument.

If you didn't have the option to get somebody else to care for your child - which is the case for a pregnant woman - you would not be able to abandon your responsibility. A good comparison would be you leaving your infant somewhere to die refusing to keep it alive and you'd go to prison for that.


Suffice it to say that I am not compelled by the state to donate my blood or organs or the use of these in order to protect my child.

And since this is the case, it is incorrect to say that the unborn baby is being deprived of their rights, since this is not a right enjoyed by anyone.

If the health of the mother is at risk at any stage during the pregnancy, we allow abortions.


And so does Canada.

Kaiserschmarrn wrote:Nobody has the right to abandon an born infant to die either, so by the pro-abortionist's logic the rights of parents do not matter. They don't have the right to take their bodies to the pub and have a pint with their mates if they have an infant at home! So unfair. :lol:

Your arguments are seriously defective.


I have no idea how you built this strawman out of anything we have said.

———————————

Nonsense. You knew I was discussing the USA as I mentioned it time and again and used terms only applicable to the US. You argued back about the effect on the US constitution. You were not confused at all. Your assertion is disingenuous.

You are also not speaking about Ireland. In Ireland the constitution can be changed (as it just was) by referendum; an easier and more directly democratic method than the US or Canada. You also ought to read about the Canadian constitution in your spare time. You will see how it can be amended too.

Your US-centric jibe is just the last gasp of someone who is badly loosing an argument and without any other means to hit back.


You seem to think I was saying that a bill of rights cannot be amended. This is not what I was arguing.

I was arguing that a liberal democracy uses several means to ensure that certain rights are protected no matter what the majority thinks.

And this is true because of how we define liberal democracies.

If you remove these safeguards, you have a different type of democracy where people do not actually have what we could consider liberal rights.

The act of amending your constitution in order to remove individual liberties would be an illibeal act, even if it were a democratic one.

As a practical matter, the US, Canada, and Ireland are supposedly liberal democracies. So, because these countries already have these safeguards, you cannot simply take away someone’s rights “because democracy”.

It is a silly argument to try to conclude that we do not require humans to use their bodies to protect other humans. Google "selective service". We have done it for generation.


I do not see pregnancy and selective service as comparable. Can you explain how this comparison works?

Stupid question. Why don't you point out where a child is offered more rights than born people? I hope you are not going down the 'mother's body" rabbit hole. That is just silly. ALL OF US concede that late term abortions should be allowed to save the life of the mother. However we do not agree that we should kill a child because the mother finds it inconvenient.


We have already shown that unborn babies have the right to access the body of their parent without consent while born babies do not. Except in Canada.

Your repeated use of the term “inconvenient” to describe the shallowness of the motives of the pregnant person is a good example of emotionally manipulative language.

Even if we ignore reality and pretend that there are actually elective late term abortions in Canada, and pregnant people are getting elective late term abortions out of convenience, this does not affect the argument from security of person, nor does it affect the argument from equal rights.

True. What is your point? Do you somehow equate carrying a child for a couple of months with giving an organ? :lol: If that is the best you can do I think you are all done arguing.


It is an example of where an unborn child is offered more rights than born people. Just like you asked for.

She has ample opportunity to prevent this before the child is viable. She can start with abstinence, forgo that for birth control and then abort the fetus in the first trimester. Only after she has ignored those remedies is she required to suffer the inconvenience of carrying the viable child to term. She need not even see the child after birth, pay for it, or raise it.


You seem to think that because the pregnant person has had their right to security of person respected in all these other situations, that this right can be ignored in this specific situation.

I find you position interesting. To me it speaks of a real contempt for the value of women. It also is an extremely right wing position. Hard core libertarians and tea party folks should absolutely agree with you. You are carrying personal rights to the kind of extent they relish. You are equating human rights with property rights. Your position that a woman's body is little more than her property is disturbing.

As an old-fashioned conservative Christian, I have no problem believing that laws regarding humans should not us property law as the standard. I believe that women can have some rights that others cannot have. For example they should have legal protections when pregnant. Women receive paid health care when pregnant. Men do not get free health care. And why to the do it? Because we as a society feel we have a stake in seeing children born healthy. That is unless their mothers kill them first.


1. I have already explained to you that the argument from security of person is not based on the idea of property, even though it is very similar to Rothbard’s defense of abortion.

2. In non-barbaric countries, not only do men and women get free health care at all stages of life, but they also get paid parental leave for both parents.

I do not think her position is progressive.

1. It puts property rights over human rights.

2. It follows a strict libertarian ethos which always but the individual ahead of others/community.

3. It is monumentally selfish.

4. It allows the pain and suffering of another human being for individual convenience.

5. It denigrates the role of mother.

6. It virtually eliminates the role of the father during pregnancy and perhaps eliminates it entirely.

About the only progressive notion is that it is extremely permissive while downplaying any notion of personal responsibility and consequences.


1. See above.

2. See above.

3. Your feelings are noted and irrelevant in a debate aimed at arriving at truth.

4. And since you have not presented a single example of elective late term abortions, this is an imaginary problem.

5. Your feelings are noted and irrelevant in a debate aimed at arriving at truth.

6. No. As a father in Canada, my opinion on abortion and my role in the pregnancy was never limited by this law. It could have been if I were the type of fellow who did not make the effort required to convince the mother that I was a person whose opinion is worth respecting.
#14925867
Zamuel wrote:This is called negligence, which you would know if you bothered to read the articles you quote. It is a legal factor between actual people, it does not apply to Z/E/F(s) who are not legally "People."


In some cases, perhaps. As in other circumstances you can be held liable for neglect. Abortion is not a case of neglect.

Zam 8)


None of those cases involve using your actual body parts, nor they do they require you to risk your own life.

They don't work as comparisons.

As Boycey has adequately responded to Dr Lee's assertions, there's no need for me to bother, except to say I admire his cheek in highlighting the word child, while ignoring the qualifying "unborn" bit.

A perfect example to show why I believe it's best to use the proper terms when debating abortion law, though in everyday life it doesn't matter.

A child is always human, but not always a human being. I'm not surprised he's confused.
Last edited by snapdragon on 19 Jun 2018 08:08, edited 1 time in total.
#14926012
S
ee, the problem you have Drlee is that if a unborn child was a child, US law wouldn't need to use the term unborn. This is a legal term for fetus. The scientific term is fetus. And a fetus is not regarded as a humanbeing.


Wrong. Just wrong. We do not have laws offering life in prison for the murder of an amorphous mass of cells. Get a grip.
#14926019
Drlee wrote:S

Wrong. Just wrong. We do not have laws offering life in prison for the murder of an amorphous mass of cells. Get a grip.


You need to take your biased glasses off and stop trawling the internet for anything you can and make an argument around it - because you cannot win this argument with Snapdragon by legal or biological definitions actually. A doctor should frankly know this. The only thing you should be doing is either dusting off your dictionary or medical journals on your top shelve and finally understand that a fetus is not classed as a human being until it is born and reclassified as a child. So by a basic logical deduction, an unborn child is a fetus and the law from those states have classified that under the circumstances of a specific crime against it, the punishment is treated as if it was a minor under 12. The fact this needs to be highlighted in text means the fetus isn't classed as a minor under 12 under any other circumstances otherwise this would not be required to be written within the text. Duh!!!
#14926110
OK. I see that you are unable to present an argument. I have shown you the law and the science. You are unable to understand them.

Take your best last shot. Unless you intend to develop an argument I have no reason to continue this farce with you. You do not understand the US law, you do not understand the science and you reject the tenants of democracy. Now foam at the mouth and insult me. It is the best you can do.
#14926116
Zamuel wrote:Yes, we do ... Negligence in no way compels or constrains our actions. It punishes after the fact both for action and inaction. It's also closely tied to "Intent." Law may abrogate our authority over our body, -but- in the US anyway, only after "due process," which it seems you convieniently choose to ignore.

This is also true for laws that deal with abortion, whether it's complete bans or the various restrictions that are in place across most developed countries, and thus pregnant women still have full authority over their body even if by law they are not allowed to have an abortion. So the question arises why one would bring authority over one's body into this debate.

Zamuel wrote:The law is a good enough position for me, and for most people.

Myself included. The only difference is that I don't have to tell myself that we're dealing with parasites as opposed to living human beings.

Zamuel wrote:And again, the law defies you and your silly insistence on misrepresentation.

Says the guy who called unborn children parasites.

B0ycey wrote:Until you understand that it is only your opinion a fetus is a child and legally (and scientifically) it is not, you will forever be limbo here and quite frankly ignorant and deliberately obtuse.

I have already explained why I sometimes use words such baby and child under certain circumstances and it has nothing to do with science or the law. It is how most people think and talk about the unborn, especially late in the pregnancy, and it is also a way to balance out the dehumanising language that invariably creeps up in threads like this.

B0ycey wrote:A fetus is regarded as nothing more than living tissue - and as such the mother's property until that tissue is independent (and living) from her.

Not true in many jurisdictions, certainly not in German speaking countries. Feel free to make the scientific case, if you think there is one.

B0ycey wrote:Morally and perhaps ideally it would be nice to give a fetus rights so it can have protections. But it is very practical that it remains not 'classed' as a human being. For if it was you would need a death certificate every time you have an abortion amongst other things.

I agree that legal definitions are often a matter of practicality, which is another reason why they aren't particularly useful for the purposes of discussing how abortions should be regulated.
#14926134
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:So the question arises why one would bring authority over one's body into this debate.

You'll have to answer that one, your POV is the one suggesting it wants a woman's rights suspended and control removed from her own hands.

I have already explained why I sometimes use words such baby and child under certain circumstances and it has nothing to do with science or the law.

Or reason, or intelligence, or credibility. You prefer to mislead and invoke sentimental passion. In the past, this might have been dismissed as "Well, she's just a woman." These days the bar has been raised as has the respect due female intelligence. You need to catch up.

I agree that legal definitions are often a matter of practicality, which is another reason why they aren't particularly useful for the purposes of discussing how abortions should be regulated.

So, you favor laws that use ambiguous language ... Yeah you really need to catch up.

Zam 8)
#14926138
Zamuel wrote:You'll have to answer that one, your POV is the one suggesting it wants a woman's rights suspended and control removed from her own hands.

But according to you she does have control even if we ban abortion. She can still terminate the pregnancy. She'll be punished in accordance with the law, but it will be after the fact and with due process, so no worries.

Zamuel wrote:Or reason, or intelligence, or credibility. You prefer to mislead and invoke sentimental passion. In the past, this might have been dismissed as "Well, she's just a woman." These days the bar has been raised as has the respect due female intelligence. You need to catch up.

The most common response from those who support abortion involve a combination of sanctimony and moral cowardice. Your responses have so far been no exception.

Zamuel wrote:So, you favor laws that use ambiguous language ... Yeah you really need to catch up.

Alternatively, they just come up with a non-sequitur.
#14926146
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:But according to you she does have control even if we ban abortion. She can still terminate the pregnancy. She'll be punished in accordance with the law, but it will be after the fact and with due process, so no worries.

Yeah, we had that for a while, then we decided it amounted to Oppression. Rowe vs Wade changed that. We no longer oppress women in this manner. And guess what we aren't going to start again because you, and a few like you, want to turn back the clock. Is that a new bustle you're wearing?

Zam :lol:
#14926158
Zamuel wrote: Yeah, we had that for a while, then we decided it amounted to Oppression. Rowe vs Wade changed that. We no longer oppress women in this manner. And guess what we aren't going to start again because you, and a few like you, want to turn back the clock.

I don't need to delude myself in order to support abortion being available to women.
#14926161
Drlee wrote:OK. I see that you are unable to present an argument. I have shown you the law and the science. You are unable to understand them.


But you haven't actually. There is practical reasons why the law does not recognise a fetus as a child, even in America. Because to do so would affect abortion laws amongst other things. And there is practical reasons why a fetus and a child are defined as such in biology. Apart from that, in most parts I agree with you. But that is because there is a moral argument here and not just a scientific one.

This is how I would personally like the law to work. Under embryo status (1-12) a woman can have an abortion for whatever reason she desires. Under fetus status (12-40) a woman can have an abortion but under certain conditions. These conditions would include - risk to her life, abnotmailities to the fetus in terms of becoming a healthy and fully formed human, a result of rape or the mother was younger than consent age at conception. "Equal rights for all" is irrelevant here (as both men and women adhere to the same abortion law) and so is this bizarre notion that you can do whatever you want to your body (which isn't true in regards to suicide). And as Snapdragon continues to rightly say that men should rightly pay for their child as they should have thought about the consequences before partaking in sex, the same argument can also apply to women in regards to aborting healthy fetuses. Because in my eyes, there is still the choice of adoption if they change their minds late on.
#14926164
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:I don't need to delude myself in order to support abortion being available to women.

I'm not really interested in delusions ... However I suspect your "Support for abortion" is of the - 3pm to 3:15, on the third Tuesday of the month, if it's raining - ... variety.

Tea?

Zam 8)
#14926166
Zamuel wrote:I'm not really interested in delusions ... However I suspect your "Support for abortion" is of the - 3pm to 3:15, on the third Tuesday of the month, if it's raining - ... variety.

My position is pretty much in line with the majority in western countries from the polls I've seen.
#14926169
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:My position is pretty much in line with the majority in western countries from the polls I've seen.


As far as I can tell, everyone in this thread either supports the Canadian position or your position, which Boycey has eloquently described:

B0ycey wrote:This is how I would personally like the law to work. Under embryo status (1-12) a woman can have an abortion for whatever reason she desires. Under fetus status (12-40) a woman can have an abortion but under certain conditions. These conditions would include - risk to her life, abnormalities to the fetus in terms of becoming a healthy and fully formed human, a result of rape or the mother was younger than consent age at conception.


While some pro lifers were here at the beginning, now not so much.

I would be surprised to find that Ireland chooses something other than the usual position. I highly doubt Ireland will follow Canada.
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